The engines of the missiles fired as the IFC fleet erupted with a hail of railgun fire. All of the destroyers having turned to bring their spinal weapons to bear on their enemy.
Seemingly awoken from their stupor, the Directorate fleet was quick to react however. Another round of railgun rounds launched from their guns as they continued to close the distance with the IFC. But one of their light cruiser’s guns seemed not to fire, its top turret jammed in place and unable to make the final corrections needed to hit its mark.
Now, in the ever-closing distance between the two, the rounds passed each other in a split second as they flew to their targets.
Just as the next volley of missiles were fired from the directorate ships’ launchers, a flurry of tungsten and APHE rounds slammed into them.
Point defence guns were cleaved from their vessels even as they were firing at the incoming wave of missiles. Yet more rods rippling by mere hairs from their targets or-
A railgun round cut into the flank of the heavy cruiser, ripping along half the length of the left side hull and leaving a deep gash in it’s wake of ripped metal and polymers.
But the cleanest shot of them all was of one of Gilgamesh’s APHE coilgun rounds. They slammed straight into one of the destroyers central hull, first puncturing in, before then ripping it apart, the warhead detonating in the sudden rush of oxygen and leaking fuel. The explosion was almost immediate, with the central hull completely destroyed as the ravaged set of secondary hulls flew away, a frigate barely able to doge one of them in the Directorate’s overly tight formation…
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“Admiral! Contact M4 is breaking apart, literally! We- We have the first kill of the war!”
Oliver’s face relaxed a little as a broad grin spread across his face, ”Skylar, send my congratulations to the captain and his gunnery crew on their god damned perfect shot!”
“Aye sir but our missiles-“
“They’re being deflected…” He cut in, watching their signatures veer wildly before they’re able to correct themselves. They must have EWAR capabilities aboard their ships for sure...”
“Are you wondering when they’ll turn that towards our ships?”
“I am…”
She nodded, “Lieutenant Haley, notify the fleet that we may soon come under electronic attack.”
“Yes ma’am!”
“Navcom,” Oliver called, “How soon until we can jump?”
“Six minutes sir!”
“Make sure everyone is updated on that. Any updates on their fighter screen? And how’s damage control doing?”
“They’ve shot down several of our missiles so far sir,” Skylar replied, “But they don’t seem to be making a move on us yet, they seem to be waiting a bit ahead of their fleet for them to advance up. For the hit in our starboard side damage control have isolated life support feeds and evacuated all they could from the damaged sections, stability is good.”
“Sir!” They’ve just gotten within 100 kilometres of us and they’re still getting closer!”
He was about to curse before his eyes suddenly spotted something on their scopes.
It had gone wild, contacts everywhere that were there for a second, then gone. Locks thrown off by the stream of EM radiation being thrown towards the dishes, leaving the ships effectively blind.
“Arg- God!” Haley whimpered as her hands shot to her headphones, “They’re trying to jam our coms sir! I’m still getting things through but it’s getting a difficult.”
“RADAR is screwed sir. The captain’s sensor officer is working on it and I assume the rest of the fleet-“
The false contacts disappeared, with normalcy restored, only to be replaced with a blanket of white just as the turrets started to re-acquire their targets.
Skylar groaned, “They’ve moved from a repeater attack to a full barrage… They must have realised we broke their jamming those keen-eyed sons of bitches.”
“I’m sure our operators can break it. How are the IR and ELINT systems?”
“Doing fine it seems, but it’s hard to hit anything with just those, even at our close distance.”
“Haley! See if you can send a message to Gold Star and Palm Beach to see if their sets can break through or gather some data on it for future-“
“Vampire!”
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Taking the opportunity gained from blinding their prey, the Directorate pounced. Fighters ignited their engines, charging straight into Gilgamesh’s complement.
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All along with swarms of missiles that ripped out of their launchers across the fleet, including the two, large torpedoes carried by the heavy cruiser that ejected from the mounting with a short engine burst, before lighting them up on full power.
The confused and barely functional IFC grid had barely a chance of stopping the barrage, especially at close range. Guns and missiles spraying with only a vague idea of where their marks were. With this flurry of confusion only made worse by the destroyer’s drones being near dead in the water without their command link. The flurry of IFC fighters trying to make their way back as the garbled warning of the soon to be commencing jump managed to finally break through, only added to the chaos.
Missiles and fighters started to explode in the void, growing closer and closer to the IFC fleet. The cloud continuously sailing on until-
Impact.
Fearless took another hit that tore into her bow section, opening up a ragged hole that ejected men, air, and metal into space as the ship desperately fired her thrusters to keep herself on course. Unbeatable took a similar hit to her upper bow, blasting away one of her railgun turrets along with it’s mounting.
Another impacted the destroyer Ingersoll, hitting her right in her top tower superstructure, taking out its main RADAR, IR sensors and one of its PDW lasers in one hit.
But Gilgamesh was the worst hit. Five missiles pounded into her as her armour barely held against the barrage of small swarmer missiles. The large torpedo, however, was the worst. The first one had been shot down by a burst of CIWS rounds in a stroke of good luck but the second had managed to hit.
Its cone ejected from it a few seconds from impact, firing itself into the hull and cutting into the armour before the main body slammed into the ship. The torpedo embedded in like poisoned dart.
But there was no time to wait. The scattered squadron of surviving fighters were flooding onto the landing deck just as the doors started to seal, every hatch in the fleet being closed as they rushed to move together.
The Directorate’s guns roared again, the rounds quickly shooting from their rails and racing towards their targets at thousands of meters a second.
Darkness.
The inky darkness of hyperspace opened up as the fleet accelerated into it mere moments before the rounds hit.
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Oliver dry heaved as the ship slipped out of hyperspace as his vision slowly returned.
Alarms were blaring with his console filled with warning and messages from departments across the vessel.
Damage control reporting multiple explosive decompression of compartments from the mixture of missile impacts and the aggressive hyperspace jump.
Automatic communications from other vessels tactical computers on the state of other vessels and their various panic inducing problems. From struggling damage control teams to disorientated navigators.
“Alright, who’s not dead! Sound off.”
“I feel like my intestines have just stopped trying to both exit out of my mouth and ass, but I feel fine other than that sir.” Skylar groaned.
A general mutter of “I’m alright…” followed from around the bridge. Everyone slowly pulling themselves out of their self-misery before quickly returning to their jobs.
“Skylar, we got hit by a large torpedo as we went out, has anyone got an update on that for us?”
“There seems to be a camera that by some miracle has survived by the impact point and damage control are on their way to stabilise the section.”
“Put it on the console then.”
Oliver’s console screen flickered, switching to a barely functional camera that seemed to be holding onto the ship by threads. But there it was, the end of that torpedo lodged right in the ship. But something about it felt… Off… It didn’t seem like just an oversized missile who’s warhead had failed to detonate. It’s sides-
A panel on its side blasted out, revealing it as hollow and- And suited men started to squeeze out of the small opening.
“Skylar, how close are the damage con-“
“On it. Team delta, how close- You’ve set up the airlock section!? Cut it! Boarding parties are onboard and are right next to you!”
“We’re not out of the fire then, set the ship back to battle stations and get our marines down there yesterday if you can.”
He watched them creep around the wreaked section before they slowly moved onwards. Switching camera revealed them testing the door to the temporarily converted section, opening the door and closing it behind them. The moments passing as the found the panel and figured out the process, cycling the hall before the damage control team could isolate it. The section pressurising as then they took of their suits.
Revealing the monsters inside of them.
They were a mess of bionics, cables, organic mutations and pure horror. One had teeth filed into points, arms made of blades and claws, submachineguns linked to hands, and all finished off with a psychotic glee that he could see even through the poor camera quality. Each one of them sporting their own sets of body horror augments.
“Tell the marines to expect a hard fight, these guys don’t look like the sort who you’d invite within fifty miles of a school.”
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Lance Corporal Kelly edged around the corner, her breath fogging up her visor as she tried to hold her rifle steady.
“Clear.” She called over the radio, her squamates following as they carefully filed down the corridor, instinctually sticking to the walls and against every crevasse.
They had only got brief descriptions handed down to them on what sort of… “People” they were facing, and nobody liked it.
The creaking of the ship’s straining frame didn’t help with the stress either. The constant moaning of metal reminding them of how precocious the stability of this section was without the intervention of engineers.
But that made their job only more urgent. To clear this place of hostiles and boot them off of their ship.
A click.
A click, click of metal lightly impacting against metal. Again, and again like the mandibles of an insect incessantly clicking against each other mixed with the impacts of their legs against hard ground.
The Corporal in front of her raised her hand, urging everyone to stop as they all raised their rifles to point towards that corner.
Click. Click. Click.
Click, Click, Click Click Click ClickClickClickClick.
They let loose, spraying 6.5 millimetre rounds down the hallway as the monster rushed into them. It’s claws stabbing straight through the corporal’s suit and straight into their flesh, ripping a bloody chunk out as blood poured everywhere.
But it did not let up.
The action took mere moments, and, in a flash, it had gunned down two of her squamates with some sort of heavy rifle embedded into its arm. It’s mandibles clicking with glee as its eyes- Its human eyes filled with the joy of the bloodshed.
It rushed to one side a blade flicking out of its arm as it danced around, slicing one, two more of her squad mates heads clean off with one strike.
She got a picture through her sights, her finger pulling the trigger.
Round after round punched through its throat, cutting clean through it as the monster’s eyes widened in the few seconds of consciousness it had left. Its throat ripped apart with its head threatening to topple over and break away from the small bits of flesh left connecting it to the body.
Its mandibles clicked, it’s body unable to move with its spinal cord covering the nearby wall in minced lumps, and it fell. All movement finally ceasing.
“C-Command, one down.”